Gameplay Takes a Backseat. Also Known as "How I Uninstalled Transistor"

I wanted to love you. I really did.

Since the game was released I have been struggling to play Transistor. I even got a controller all set up on my computer (finally) just for the occasion after realizing that this was not a game designed to be played with a keyboard, just like Supergiant's previous game the wonderful Bastion. As I played through Transistor there were quite a few things I loved about the game. The story, while initially pretty confusing, seemed like it was set up to take some truly interesting twists and turns. The soundtrack was absolutely incredible. I found myself constantly listening to Ashley Barret and Darren Korb's haunting song "In Circles."

Despite all of this I ultimately couldn't finish and uninstalled Transistor. I wasn't having any sort of fun. But why? The story was great, the music was fantastic, and the visuals were gorgeous. The reason is simple. It was the one element that fundamentally makes the game a game. The gameplay was incredibly bland.

In Transistor combat  plays out between an action phase and a planning phase. You can pause combat to issue whatever combat commands you have set in your slots to the main character, Red. Red will execute these moves in the order that you issue them. if you move Red during the planning phase it also uses up some of your meter at the top. When the meter is exhausted you can't perform anymore actions. Your meter will take time to recharge during which you are stuck in action phase and at the complete mercy of your enemies and you must avoid them by hiding behind the walls placed throughout the battlefield.

It seemed like an interesting concept when I first started the game but one of the biggest issues is the combo imbalance. Once the player finds a strong combo that works for them (say Help with Void and Spark slotted to it to get two incredibly strong allied dogs) there is little reason to really do anything else. The only real reward for using abilities differently is to unlock biographies about some characters, the majority of which you never actually meet through the course of the entire game. Enemies don't necessitate a different strategy, even on the hardest difficulty and there are very few encounters that you can't just mow through with Red's sheer brute force. Overall the game ends up devolving into some mildly interesting story followed by a few minutes of hectic running around and the same combo over and over again until you defeat the enemies and press forward to do the exact same thing all over again. This leads to the problem of New Game Plus being you running through the game again, using the same combo to do the same things.

There are other games out there that will receive criticism for bland gameplay such as Telltale adventure games and any given hack n' slash game. But these games have anything ranging from flashy visuals, to senses of urgency in events to even the simple fact that the gameplay actually fits the story that they are trying to tell. Transistor had none of this. The combat seemed tacked on because it necessitated gameplay due to being a video game. I feel a graphic novel, point and click adventure game or even a short film would've suited Transistor far better than the format it was presented in. Instead of being engaged the gameplay left me bored and a game should never leave their player bored.

Did you guys like Transistor or did you feel that its gameplay was lacking like I was. Would you have liked to see them do something different with it? I know that other than the battles I would've loved for there to be more characters to interact with rather than just my sword. Let me know in the comments and I'll see you all next week.